Carmen Suite No. 1

Ernest Guiraud (1837-1892) was a colleague and good friend of Bizet's. After Bizet's death, he composed the recitatives still commonly used in Carmen. Between 1880 and 1882, he compiled two orchestral suites from this opera, each in five movements, for Choudens, Bizet's publisher. The first of these two suites included the Prelude, Aragonaise, Intermezzo, Les Dragons d 'Alcala and a Final (Les Toreadors). In this first suite, Guiraud stayed fairly close to Bizet's original orchestration. The present edition seeks to be even more faithful to Bizet's scoring.  Around 1906, the German composer-conductor Fritz Hoffmann (1873-19xx) arranged the Séguidille for orchestra, for inclusion in a publication of the Suite by a German publisher. This arrangement has also been included in this suite.